This
elegant and restrained biopic of genius Go player Wu
Qingyuan is quiet, contemplative, and absorbing, though
the languid pace could lose many. Chang Chen underplays
beautifully as the title character.

Review
by Kozo:

Directed by Tian Zhuangzhuang
(The Blue Kite), The Go Master tells
the real-life story of Wu Qingyuan, a genius Go player
whose talent for the game was so profound that he
was whisked away from his home in China and transplanted
to Japan, where he began to compete in professional
Go matches. Chang Chen stars as Wu Qingyuan (called
Go Seigen by his adopted Japanese homeland), whose
rise in the world of Go is chronicled in unglamorized,
yet elegant detail. Wu begins his Go career in Japan
along with his family (consisting of Sylvia Chang
and Betty Huang), but the rise of Sino-Japanese tensions
impel them to head back to China to escape any possible
retribution in Japan. But Wu remains, continuing his
almost single-minded pursuit of the game of Go. Wu
meets the love of his life, Kazuko (Ayumi Ito), when
he joins a messianic cult, after which his loyalties
begin to change. Wu eventually decides to leave the
game of Go, citing his devotion to his religion, but
many events draw him back. His religious leader wishes
for him to return to playing to help promote their
beliefs, while his teacher (Akira Emoto) has long
hoped for his return to the game. But real life seems
to take its toll on the isolated, emotionally-adrift
Wu Qingyuan, leading to an existential personal crisis,
and possibly madness.

Audiences with short attention
spans had best steer clear of The Go Master.
The game of Go is not for the impatient anyway (a
single match can last as long as a few months), and
its elegance and intellectual fascination are not
imparted on the audience at all, which could be viewed
as a detriment to the picture. Without a clue as to
how Go works, unfamiliar audiences may wonder why
people are spending so much time sitting at a block
of wood playing a game that looks like Othello. Of
course, Go is vastly more popular in East Asia than
in the rest of the world, and The Go Master is not a film for casual audiences anyway. Tian Zhuangzhuang
is very hands-off in his approach to his subject matter
- so hands off, in fact, that it's almost impossible
to discern an active viewpoint in the film. The Go
Master is not concerned with editorializing the life
of Wu Qingyuan. Sure, the guy joined a cult, but the
experience is presented matter-of-factly, and without
any judgement. The film is concerned with Wu Qingyuan
only, his personality and experience, and any and
all events presented in the film simply depict what
he went through. Based on his own autobiography, the
film uses subtitled excerpts from Wu's own printed
work to flesh out the occasional expository voiceover. The Go Master is just telling us how it was,
either factually or filtered through the subject himself.
The point of view is respectful, but unrevealing.
Wu Qingyuan may be a genius and a legend, but his
daily life is so bereft of action that he seems to
be forever lost in thought. Unfortunately, typical
movie audiences can't read minds.

Without a point of view to
lean on, the audience may find itself, like the title
character, to be a bit adrift. Wu Qingyuan is not
a very active person. He seems frustratingly insular,
and doesn't seem to relate to the world in an overt
fashion. Contemplation is Wu Qingyuan's primary action,
with both Go and with life, and the effect is ultimately
loneliness, and a quietly desperate madness. Tian
Zhuangzhuang reveals the character through action
and events, and not through words. The technique at
play here is almost invisible; the storytelling is
elegant and quiet, taking on a languid and possibly
dull quality. There's no tension or action here, just
scenes from a man's life as he quietly struggles with
change, both external and internal. There's no narrative
drive, no bad guys or good guys. Meaning isn't created
here by a series of actions; rather, each moment has
its own meaning and exists as part of a greater tapestry,
from the disruption of a Go game due to the bombing
of Hiroshima, to a moment where Wu silently weeps
at a roadside. In the end it's all supposed to lead
us somewhere.

Or is it? Each moment suggests
immediate meaning, but a greater, conclusive meaning
is hard to ascertain. If any defining theme can be
ascertained from The Go Master, it's that Wu
struggled his whole life simply to figure out his
own existence. Wu seems to forever be going through
the motions, and never appears to do anything with
a sense of purpose or desire. His existence seems
almost abstract, and bereft of anything resembling
material or physical satisfaction. Moments of humanity
do come through - at one point, Wu admits to missing
his wife terribly, and the moment is played up as
a large revelation for him. Wu appears to be silently
stretching for something greater in the distance,
but what that is always seems to elude him. Chang
Chen marvelously underplays as Wu Qingyuan, and rarely
ever appears to be acting. Every gesture or mannerism
from Chang is a part of Wu Qingyuan's personality,
from his affected walk to his silent observation of
the Go board. It's a part that's revelatory in its
economy, and that same credit can be given to the
film as a whole. The Go Master is disarmingly simple,
but the beauty lies in its quiet details and authenticity.
The negative here is that the film may be too passive,
refusing to ever truly show the audience why Wu Qingyuan
and his story should matter. But, unlike Wu's contemplative
quest for meaning, The Go Master never seems
to imply that any meaning truly exists. It's a film
that reveals in each and every moment, and not in
its final fifteen minutes. That could be too much
- or perhaps too little - for some audiences. The
Go Master doesn't announce its relevance, which
is why it probably appears to have little. However,
simply observing may be enough. (Kozo 2007)